Yesterday I submitted a story for a contest. As I typed in my credit card information for the entry fee. I said a prayer over and over in my mind, "Please God let me win something. Please God let me win something."
After the culmination of days and months rolling down a hill and snowballing into years without stepping foot into a church, my Catholic upbringing of spending every Sunday on a hard wooden pew with my grandma Ita, has not left me.
I sat in a noisy coffee shop quickly rereading a story, I've read 100 times, one more time to make sure it was really ready to send out. I attached it quickly to the email, exhaled, let my fingers hover over the keys and finally hit enter, sending a piece of my heart into cyber space for someone to look over, read, and hopefully connect with it.
The heart of a writer is both tender and calloused. We pour pieces of ourselves out onto paper for people to judge. Perhaps I should say the heart of the artist, but I can't think of other professions where one hands out pieces of themselves, gift wrapped with crinkled paper, to strangers.
After I hit send I crossed myself (with a bit of subtly I'm superstitious not crazy) and said a silent thank you then added one more, "Please God let me win something," for good measure and tried to remember the words of Sylvia Plath.
After the culmination of days and months rolling down a hill and snowballing into years without stepping foot into a church, my Catholic upbringing of spending every Sunday on a hard wooden pew with my grandma Ita, has not left me.
I sat in a noisy coffee shop quickly rereading a story, I've read 100 times, one more time to make sure it was really ready to send out. I attached it quickly to the email, exhaled, let my fingers hover over the keys and finally hit enter, sending a piece of my heart into cyber space for someone to look over, read, and hopefully connect with it.
The heart of a writer is both tender and calloused. We pour pieces of ourselves out onto paper for people to judge. Perhaps I should say the heart of the artist, but I can't think of other professions where one hands out pieces of themselves, gift wrapped with crinkled paper, to strangers.
After I hit send I crossed myself (with a bit of subtly I'm superstitious not crazy) and said a silent thank you then added one more, "Please God let me win something," for good measure and tried to remember the words of Sylvia Plath.
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